© 2018 JETIR April 2018, Volume 5, Issue 4 www.jetir.org (ISSN-2349-5162) THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE TITLES IN THE RAJ QUARTET Dr Vidya Patil Assistant Professor, Department of English, Government First Grade Women‘s College, Bidar Abstract :- Scott stated that “For me, the British Raj is an extended metaphor [and] I don’t think a writer chooses his metaphors. They choose him.” In the Raj Quartet the metaphor of the Raj is extended into images, symbols and metaphors in the four volumes. Scott renders the history of the Raj in terms of the stories of the symbolic characters and events. These metaphors stand for various stages in the life of individuals as also of the raj – thwarted love, imprisonment, madness and death and funeral. The events that befall the individual characters have a parallelism in the events of the Raj. There is perfect amalgamation of history and story in The Quartet. Scott’s method is to elaborate historic ideas in terms of symbols and metaphors. Scott has executed his magnificent conception of the novel as an “extended metaphor” for communicating his view of life. Key Words: - Extended metaphor, Symbols, Images, History of the Raj, Conception. Introduction :- Paul Scott was a well-known British novelist, playwright and poet who wrote the famous tetralogy, The Raj Quartet. The books in the tetralogy series outline the final years of the British occupation of India from manifold viewpoints and address moral confl icts of British army officers in the East. The Raj Quartet is a long, leisurely, high-detailed set of novels. Paul Scott‘s monumental opus is inevitably complex and potentially confusing. Its central action spans a period of five years and is set in an area which went on to become five nations. It consists of more than 300 named characters, including 24 principal characters. The Raj Quartet comprises four volumes, four masterpieces about the fall of the British Empire in India. It is undoubtedly one of the great works of English literature of the last century. It is an engrossing tale where history engulfs loves, lives, hopes, past and present, and it builds, too - something new, despite the forces which try to stop it. It's beautiful and poignant, wonderfully written, and despite its length, it's a compulsively enjoyable novel to read. The Raj Quartet is a memorable literary experience. Paul Scott memorializes the complexities of the Indian/British colonial relationship in this massive work. It is rich in the atmosphere and culture of the Indian sub-continent. The book is an excellent novel, presenting the varying aspects of life in India in the last years of British rule. Paul Scott captures many of the attitudes and struggles of both the British and Indians in those years. The book is a really interesting exploration of the sort of last gasp of the British Empire in India, looking at a certain violent event from the perspective of many characters of different classes and races. It is interesting and well-written. It perfectly describes how the Indians and British viewed each other, the feelings that prevailed in the 30‘s and 40‘s when Partition occurred. We are not only introduced to the history of that period but we also get acquainted with the atmosphere of the times. The action of The Raj Quartet takes place over a five-year span, from the nationalist "Quit India" disturbances of 1942 to Britain's departure in 1947. The consequences of these tremendous events are still echoed in the modern world of today. Paul Scott's four novels show us this history through the fates of several persons, most of them English. By the novelist's art we see the birth pangs of modern India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh — nations that contain over a fifth of the world's present population. Four novels form Paul Scott‘s series known as The Raj Quartet: The Jewel in the Crown, The Day of the Scorpion, The Towers of Silence, and A Division of the Spoils. The quartet takes a panoramic view of India during the last days of the Raj, the British ruling class in India. In 1945, the British government voted to grant India independence from Great Britain; the days of colonialism ended and an uneasy transfer of power began. Scott‘s novels cover a five-year period from 1942 to 1947, and he uses that particularly turbulent and disturbing era to introduce a large cast of characters and the events that shape much of modern life—the last gasp of imperialism, World War II, and the dawn of the nuclear age. Significance of the Titles :- Scott stated that “For me, the British Raj is an extended metaphor [and] I don’t think a writer chooses his metaphors. They choose him.” (Spurning,1970) In the Raj Quartet the metaphor of the Raj is extended into images, symbols and metaphors in the four volumes. Scott renders the history of the Raj in terms of the stories of the symbolic characters and events. “The giant Metaphor of the Raj emerges out of the individual metaphors of the four volumes – the picture of the Jewel in the Crown of the first volume, the scorpion in the circle of fire of the second volume, the towers of silence of the third, and the deaths of Ronald Merrick and of Ahmed, in the last volume.” (Badiger,1994) These metaphors stand for various stages in the life of individuals as also of the raj – thwarted love, imprisonment, madness and death and funeral. The events that befall the individual characters have a parallelism in the events of the Raj. There is perfect amalgamation of history and story in The Quartet. Scott‘s method is to elaborate historic ideas in terms of symbols and metaphors. “In the final analysis, The Quartet emerges as an “extended metaphor” standing for Scott’s view of life.” (Badiger,1994) The Raj Quartet is a story of thwarted love and death which, at the metaphorical level, are seen to be the history of thwarted love between JETIR1804020 Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (JETIR) www.jetir.org 92 © 2018 JETIR April 2018, Volume 5, Issue 4 www.jetir.org (ISSN-2349-5162) Indians and the British at the end of the Raj in India. This is best exemplified through the titles selected for the four novels of the Quartet. The first three books are each titled by a metaphor. Each novel‘s title relays a strong thematic content. The Jewel in the Crown - The ‗Jewel in the Crown‘ of the title is a phrase often used to refer to India when it was a part of the Empire. The phrase has a double-meaning as the Koh-i-Noor, once the world‘s largest known diamond, was confiscated by the British East India Company and presented to Queen Victoria when she was proclaimed Empress of India in 1877. Ownership of the diamond, which is now part of Queen Elizabeth II‘s crown, continues to be a point of contention between the British and Indian people and governments. In the novel, ‗The Jewel in the Crown‘ is also the title of a painting depicting the presentation of a diamond to Queen Victoria by several Indian princes who are paying obeisance to her. Miss Crane, a missionary teacher, uses the painting to explain to students that it is an allegory, that the jewel represents India and the scene as depicted never actually happened. Her teaching method comprises namely of a picture, ―The Jewel in Her Crown,‖ and the Indian children are educated on two levels, literal and abstract. The picture depicts Queen Victoria sitting on a golden throne in the open air, surrounded by representative figures of her Indian Empire, “princes, landowners, merchants, money-lenders, sepoys, farmers, servants, children and mothers, and remarkably clean and tidy beggars” (JC:26-27). The children thus learn to identify objects, colours and people they see, acquiring the knowledge of English language; in addition and probably more importantly, they learn about the social and political structure in India and also about Christianity presented in the picture by angels, hovering above the Queen‘s head, granting her protection. According to an ordained member of the Church, Edwina Crane has managed over the years ―to teach English and at the same time love of the English,‖ namely ―their good intentions‖ (JC;28). India is the ―Jewel in the Crown‖. It signifies the Crown‘s most precious dominion of the Victorian era – its control, forced conformity, ―civilizing‖ and exploitation of India. The Day of the Scorpion - Scott takes the title The Day of the Scorpion from a haunting childhood memory burned into the mind of one of the novel‘s main characters, Sarah Layton. She recalls the day an Indian servant discovered a scorpion, surrounded it with a circle of kerosene, and set the fuel alight. While the fascinated and repelled Layton sisters watched, the scorpion arched its back and appeared to sting itself with its deadly tail before the flames could spread. There is a belief in India, that the only way to kill a scorpion is to pour kerosene around it and set it alight (you can‘t approach anywhere near it). When the heat becomes unbearable, the scorpion will sting itself to death. Scott uses this as a metaphor for the British Empire. The image of the scorpion‘s suicide (even though later exploded as a myth) troubles Sarah and becomes a metaphor for English vulnerability within India‘s circle of fire. By the close of the novel, Sarah knows that her emotionally unstable sister has placed her newborn son in a similar circle of fire, echoing the scorpion and the fate of Miss Crane, who burned herself to death in a ritual form of suttee.